491 
ON THE MORPHOLOGY OP VINCA MINOR 
(SMALL PERIWINKLE). 
BY JAMES BUCKMAN, F.L.S., F.G.S., ETC., PROFESSOR OF BOTANY 
AND GEOLOGY. 
T IME was when the collecting botanist almost avoided all 
specimens of plants that were not typical in form ; but 
since the immortal Goethe propounded his remarkable morpho- 
logical views, the aberrations of form assumed by some plants 
under extraordinary circumstances have been carefully inquired 
into, and their teachings made to explain the theories of plant 
structure — vegetable comparative anatomy — which knowledge 
is the very foundation of correct and philosophical classification. 
Viewed in this fight, examples of plants which were once set 
aside as monsters, are now carefully studied by the philosophical 
botanist, and as these often occur unexpectedly, I purpose 
from time to time to offer the readers of the Popular Science 
Review some illustrations of the more remarkable examples 
of morphological changes which have as yet come before me, 
or which may hereafter reward my search. 
Now, in following out this plan no very lengthened descrip- 
tion will be required, because even the student will at once 
recognise the meanings of the drawings ; when, however, we 
have a tolerable series of cases before us, it may perhaps be 
well to recur to them, in illustration and elucidation of the 
remarkable views and generalisations such objects cannot fail 
to establish in the philosophic mind. 
Our first specimen then is that of the Vinca minor (the Lesser 
Periwinkle) . Plate XX., fig. 1, is a magnified drawing of a flower 
only partially expanded ; in this the petals will be seen to be 
united into a tube, which has been opened to expose the curious 
columnar pistil and the five remarkable stamens. Here the 
style, of most elegant form, is surmounted by a stigma which 
is externally covered with fine bristle-like hairs, so pointing 
in every direction that, hke a modern bristle door-mat, it is 
certain to sweep off whatever it may come near. Now, in the 
unexpanded flower the five two-lobed anthers converge over 
the top of this stigma; but as the flower opens, and is exposed 
to heat and sunlight, the anthers burst ; and simultaneously 
